Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting.

22 July 2007

Weekend Update

Further proof that Roger Ebert should gracefully retire before he damages his "legacy" (such as it is) any more than he has recently came out of his own mouth on Friday. In his review of Goya's Ghosts (3.0/4) (20 Jul 2007), he implicitly dismisses European criticism of the film as an inappropriate refusal to recognize the difference between the critic and the filmmaker: "Sometimes I wonder if critics aren't reviewing the film they would have preferred rather than the one the director made." In two other reviews also posted on Friday, he turns around and does precisely that.

If I have a problem with the movie, it's the too-neat O. Henry ending. I would have rather plunged deeper into the fearful waters they tread. A perfectly realistic movie on such a situation would have been fascinating, but here it has been adjusted, alas, to the requirements of the audience. Why do people get so angry at movies that end in mystery and unresolved wounds, like Lost in Translation? Why do they like it when a movie, however fascinating, goes on autopilot to wrap things up at the end?

Blasting a Q-ball to its constituent parts sounds normal to me, but then I read every sci-fi magazine published during my adolescence, and my hero was John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of Astounding/Analog, who insisted his fiction not be preposterous, but sensible and possible, such as a mission to the sun to blast a Q-ball to pieces.

Yeah, I really honestly believe that there's a shortage of gasoline available at the pump. On the other hand, I also remember late 1973 through early 1975. Might I suggest reporters and media outlets (not to mention PR flacks) asserting that this reflects the so-called "law of supply and demand" look up the concept of "price elasticity" before they open their ignorant mouths again?

I'm going to set the over/under on the length of the forthcoming film of HP7  and remember, no screenwriter or director has yet been fully confirmed  at 2:10. A substantially greater proportion of the book is devoted to the kind of set-piece scenarism that compresses easily (or, at least, efficiently) into shorter passages on film than has been true of any prior book in the series. I'll leave it to readers  and, eventually, to filmgoers  to decide whether this is a "bug" or a "feature." Hopefully, one of Russ Meyer's scriptwriters (see first item above) won't get too revisionist himself when he gets his shot at evaluating it.

I'm probably going to be shot for saying this by an angry 70ish fanboy while I'm in St. Louis is two weeks' time, but "demanded better than the crap that went before him, and actually had relatively honest business practices" is not sufficient justification for holding up John W. Campbell as a paragon of good fiction editing. Leaving aside that Campbell was a reactionary, racist SOB  the story of his estrangement from Dr Asimov is covered in more than sufficient detail in both of Asimov's own memoirs  Campbell is perhaps the epitome of "there's only one correct way to write fiction." He should be celebrated as a pioneer who showed the way out of a particular rut  not as a master worthy of emulation today. Perhaps the most damning thing that one can say about John W. Campbell is that his editorial approach to storytelling would have approved of The Phantom Script... which will almost certainly prove to have less narrative coherence than this forthcoming film about fanboys on the way to see it. Or anything coming out of George III's mouth.

OK, those lines are updated from slightly different eras of SNL. So sue me.

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Blog Archive

Warped Weft

Now live at the new site. I have arranged some of the more infamous threads that have appeared here by unravelling them from the blawg tapestry (and hopefully eliminating some of the sillier typos). Sometimes, the threads have been slightly reordered for clarity.

Other Blawgs, Blogs, and Journals

These may be of interest; I do not necessarily agree with opinions expressed in them, although the reasoning and writing are almost always first-rate (and represent a standard seldom, if ever, achieved in "mainstream" journalism). I'm picky, and have eclectic tastes, so don't expect a comprehensive listing.

How Appealing is aimed at appellate lawyers and legal news in general. If you care about the state of the law, start here — Howard's commentary is far better balanced, better informed, and better considered than any of the media outlets. To concentrate on the US Supreme Court, don't forget SCOTUSBlog.

Some academics' blawgs with a variety of political (and doctrinal) viewpoints:

The main European IP blawg of interest remains the UK-based IPKat, on a variety of intellectual property issues, with some overlap (with a less Eurocentric view) at IPFinance

The American Constitution Society blawg is a purportedly "liberal" counterweight to the so-called "Federalist Society" (which, despite its claims, should be called "Tory Society") that has yet to establish much coherence... but maybe that's all to the good.

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